Talk:Alchemy/Archive 2

message: I feel like something is missing from this article. We focus on history, but what about techniques, accomplishments of alchemists, etc.? I don't know, seems like we could add more outside the realm of "History," otherwise this could be called History of alchemy. --Tothebarricades.tk 20:26, 5 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Information other than on the history? 

message: The Greeks appropriated the hermetical beliefs of the Egyptians and melded with them the philosophies of Pythagoreanism, ionianism, and gnosticism.
What is "ionianism"? I can't seem to find anything about it. --Tothebarricades.tk 20:41, 5 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ionianism? 

message: I made a few changes in the overview section to better reflect that, while modern science has its opinions on Alchemy, those opinions are not necessarily the only authoritative ones. When viewed from behind the lens of methodological naturalism, which modern science uses for its first premise, Alchemy seems a bit absurd and superstitious. But did the Alchemists themselves use this background assumption? What would it do to our notions of the validity of Alchemy if we no longer held onto methodological naturalism so rigidly?
:::I notice you put a "disputed" tag on the article. Are there specific statements in the article as it stands now that you find to be factually inaccurate? PRiis 06:19, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I've reverted your edits as Alchemists were just like modern scientists, trying to understand the world around them.  The big difference is that they knew less than we do now.  The changes you made removed relevant explainations as to why Alchemy may have seemed to be valid in the past.  --Bletch 16:53, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)

text: Yes I have studied the philosophy of science, and know about the advent of scientific method.  That is precisely why your edits were reverted, because they removed explainations as to why alchemists did things that look silly to modern eyes.  However, the intention was not to make them look 'silly', any more than articles about earlier obsolete models such as Geocentricity is supposed to make their adherents look silly.  If you think that this is a concern, please propose a wording that does not delete relevant information.  --Bletch 14:49, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: this is one side of the story, true enough. But Bletch, anon does have a point, "The big difference is that they knew less than we do now." is very far off the mark, concerning Alchemy; they were exploring realms outside the scope of the scientific method, too. dab (ᛏ) 16:04, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I basically agree with the anon too, and thought the edits were reasonable--it's critical in a subject like this that the article discuss what the alchemists themselves thought they were doing, in their own intellectual context (as well as ours). Most of statements the anon removed were historically naive. What I was most concerned about, though, was the "disputed" tag, which normally means there are specific statements in the article that are factually inaccurate, not that there is a missing information. Is there anything in there now (apart from the recent revert) that is wrong enough that we should turn away a student writing a paper on alchemy? And if so, what is it specifically, so we can get it changed? PRiis 17:46, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)

text: Hi, Modulus. Yes, I agree with the changes you already made (that got reverted), but I was wondering if there was anything beyond that. Bletch, would you mind if we undid your reversion? The  problem with the deleted statements, as I see it, is that they're projecting the modern scientific viewpoint backwards in an ahistorical way. Alchemists weren't trying to answer the kinds of questions that, say, Mendeleev or Dalton were concerned with. PRiis 05:05, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: There needs to be some explanation as to why otherwise intelligent people would embrace ideas like the four classical elements, associations between the planets and materials and so forth.  These are things that modern people who might take the idea scientific method and Occam's razor for granted may find baffling.  I'm certainly open to the possibility that the text in question does not do a perfect job of explaining that, but simply deleting it outright (IMHO) is not a solution. --Bletch 15:02, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  naturalistic bias in article 

message: I removed the following:
::: The meaning can also be black soil rather than black in which case it may refer to Khem or nigredo.
There is no word Khem in ancient Egyptian that means "black" (that word is km(t)), nor is there a deity named Khem. Nefertum17 11:14, 18 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Etymology 

message: I haven't been able to find all of my books on the subject yet, but let me put a little bit out for right now before I head to work.
In Alchemy: the Art of Knowing, we have "The most common view is that it originated in Egypt, and certainly some of the earliest recorded history of the Divine Art, as it was also known, comes from that country.  According to ancient tradition, the originator of alchemy was Hermes Trismegistus, who is said to have lived some 2500 years before Christ, and who takes the role of teacher in a series of written dialogues of uncertain and mysterious origin."
Hermes' teachings are of course the inspiration for Hermeticism, and as I have been claiming, Alchemy is a Hermetic art.
The book goes on a few pages later: "To penetrate the many veils of secrecy and symbolism surrounding the practice of alchemy in medieval times would take a lifetime of study, and even then, the investigator would probably be not much nearer to the truth of what was happening in alchemical laboratories.... In addition it was common practice among alchemists to weave together legend, factual history, and alchemical secrets and to publish these allegorical tales as a way of passing on their knowledge to other adepts and initiates.." 
The reason for this secrecy is simple.... you have a non-Christian art in the middle of Catholic Europe, during the high reign of the Church, the same one that killed people for such heresies as Arianism which believed that Jesus was inferior to the Father.  Sabellianism argued that the trinity was three aspects of the same being.  Heretics suffered, of course, the wrath of the Inquisition.   Practicing spiritual alchemy, a non-christian art some would relate to magic, in the open would undoubtedly result in your death and the destruction of your work.  So as Nostradamus veiled his work in riddles and non-chronological order, the spiritual alchemists veiled theirs.  Of course, the moment that someone who was not initiated into the art read about it, they misunderstood it and focused on doing the physical rather than the spiritual transformation.
In Francis Mellville's The Book of Alchemy we see "Until recently, science historians have tended to consider alchemy as a forerunner of modern chemistry, and alchemists the deluded practitioners of an illusory pseudoscience who nevertheless managed to establish some useful scientific facts in the course of their experiments.  But what of all the princes, saints, popes, and queens who have practiced this art?  To say nothing of such eminent scientists as Isaac Newton, Robert Boyle, and Jan Van Helmont."
I do remember reading that Newton was a Hermetic as well, though more of a Hermetic-influenced Christian.  This passage from a 2002 book shows that the stance of this article is a recently outdated majority opinion of science historians..... it's not seen as that anymore.  As for what it is seen as:
"The anonomous author of the influential Sophic Hydrolith ('Waterstone of the Wise', 1619) tells us that '..the practice of this Art enables us to understand not merely the marvels of Nature, but the nature of God Himself.  It shadows forth, in a wonderfal manner...all the articles of the Christian faith, and the reason why man must ass through much tribulation and anguish, and fall prey to death, before he can rise again to a new life.'"
I think that describes spiritual achemy pretty much there.  The book goes on to ambiguously describe the art, explaining nothing more than halfway, as if to continue the secrecy.
A much clearer explanation is given in Manly Palmer Hall's The Hermetic Marriage: "Concealed beneath chemistry -- the science of relating chemicals and elements---these minds discovered the ancient Egyptian arcana, long hidden by the crafty priests of Ra and Ammon.  Alchemy thereupon became the chemistry of the soul, for under the material symbol of chemistry was concealed the mystery of 'The Coming Forthy by Day.'  These ancient wise men taught that the world was a great laboratory man learned how to combine the living chemicals of thought, action, and desire, and by learning the ways of Nature, became the master of Nature.  He became a God by actually becoming a man."
Here the much acclaimed Hall explains that alchemy's true meaning is behind the symbolism of sulphur and mercury, lead and gold and silver.  It is not meant to be chemistry, that's all metaphors.  And as I am running out of time before work right now, I'll stop here until I have more time, and then I'll add more evidence and even explain the symbolism somewhat.  I hope the formatting took.
KV 19:38, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Please note that all those statements (including Jung's quotation further up) are modern interpretations, not facts.  In particular, the passage that explains the alchemist's hermetic writing as attempts to hide their speculation from the Church is just a common modern cliché.  Even at the most opressive times and places, the Church's censors and inquisitors would tolerate much more far-fetched metaphysical speculation, if it was nothing more than that. Their eyes were all set on people who (like Giordano Bruno or Galileo) actually threatened the Church's internal discipline, prestige, and political influence. So much so that Nostradamus, for example, did publish his predictions -- even though future-telling was unambiguously condemned by the Church.On the whole, alchemy was not perceived to be heretical, and in fact it was practiced by many priests and devoted Catholics.One should also be wary of making blanket statements about an activity that spanned from the 13th to the 18th century, from Portugal to Russia. Surely there were plenty of times and places where the alchemists could have been more open about their hidden spiritual knowledge -- if they in fact had something to hide.Moreover, if one accepts that alchemists wrote about chemistry at least some of the time, one should not trust any book about alchemy whose author is not competent in chemistry -- Jung included. Obviously, a scholar who is not "chemically literate" will not be able to tell whether a phrase like that quoted by Jung is about the soul or about mercury the element.Finally, one should note that Newton, Lavoisier, Dalton, Priestley, & co. were alchemists, too! The change in name from "alchemy" to "chemistry" is a mere detail, it does not mean a replacement of one disciplne by another.  In other words, it is not the case that Chemistry pushed Alchemy out of the widow, rather Alchemy just kept advancing until it finally got answers to many of the questions it had been asking over the centuries.  Trying to pass that for a "minor trend" or a "corruption" of alchemy would be a highly biased and inaccurate presentation of the facts.All the best, Jorge Stolfi 21:09, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Evidence of Alchemy having Mystical Inention 

message: While you are mostly correct, Mr. Stolfi, you are wrong to state that Chemistry is a continuation  of Alchemy.  Infact, the late Alchemists despised Chemists, and thought of them as "puffers" and merely manipulators of nature, who knew not of her true secrets.  And in their mind, the gap between an Adept and a Chemist grew ever larger.
:But that is the opinion of some alchemists; the others had the opposite opinion. So the proper way to put it is that by the start of the 19th century there were two branches of alchemy, one that focused on the philosophical aspects and one that focused on the material aspects; and the latter eventually became modern chemistry. Each branch aparently thinks of itself as being true to the goals of the  earlier alchemists.  Well, this article should not take sides; we should present both views, and report the advances made by both branches. Perhaps the article is lacking on the hermetic side; but it is highly incomplete on the material side, too. There is very little information on the many chemical discoveries of the alchemists (and most of what there is was added by myself). That ain't fair...All the best, Jorge Stolfi 15:26, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Chemistry, not Alchemy