Talk:Alchemy/Archive 3

message: "Alchemy is an early protoscientific and philosophical discipline combining the elements of chemistry, metallurgy, physics, medicine, astrology, semiotics, mysticism, and art."
This sentence fails to be even clear, it certainly fails to recognize that it's indeed TWO disciplines.  The first time I read this I had no idea that there was anything to do with spiritual alchemy in this article at all.
:[JS] As far as I can tell, the existence of two disciplines is strictly a modern interpretation; the alchemists themselves (and contemporary commentators) did not seem to be aware of that. It would be POV to say upfront that "there were two types of alchemy", as if it were an established fact, and assume this "fact" throughout the article.  (Since this seems to be the main bone of contention, I won't address it again in the following item-by-item replies; we shoud discuss this separately.)  
:Anyway, I honestly thought that the spiritual side of alchemy was covered under "philosophical" and "mysticism". If the spiritual alchemists do not feel included in "pilosophical", we can add "religious" or "spiritual" after "pilosophical", and/or add "spiritualism" together with "mysticism". Jorge Stolfi 03:43, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Head paragraph

message: "Today, the discipline is of interest mainly to historians of science and philosophy, and for its mystic, esoteric, and artistic aspects. Nevertheless, alchemy was one of the main precursors of modern sciences, and we owe to the ancient alchemists the discovery of many substances and processes that are the mainstay of modern chemical and metallurgical industries."
This passage ignores spiritual alchemy altogether and doesn't discuss any of it's accomplishments, and it also fails to realize that occultists do have much interest in alchemy, for the spiritual reasons.
:[JS] Again, I thought that "mystic and esoteric aspects" covered the spiritual ones too. If that is not the case, we can easily fix it. Jorge Stolfi 03:43, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Present status

message: The entire Alchemy as a protoscience section deals solely with physical alchemy, other than the one sentence there.  Such a section shouldn't even mention spiritual alchemy other than to mention that it exists in opposition to what is in that section.
:[JS] A section called "Alchemy as a protoscience" should obviously discuss alchemy as a protoscience. The next section, "The changing goals of alchemy" discusses the view of alchemy as a spiritual discipline. You may notice that it is a bit longer than the previous one. I may have edited that material for syntax and such, but I tried to keep all the information, as well as I could — even though, in my private opinion, that view would hardly be worth a paragraph. So much for my "bias".
:However, perhaps we should change the section title to be "Alchemy as a spiritual discipline" for clarity. Jorge Stolfi 03:43, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Alchemy as a protoscience

message: "Alchemists enjoyed prestige and support through the centuries, though not for their pursuit of those unattainable goals, nor the mystic and philosophical speculation that dominates their literature."  While this at least alludes to spiritual alchemy, and even suggests that it was more popular, the article completely fails to explain spiritual alchemy, something that I wanted to add in once I had the bias out of the introduction.
:[JS] This paragraph tries to explain "why was alchemy popular", and I believe that it is factually correct. Is that in question? Jorge Stolfi 03:43, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Why was alchemy popular

message: "On the other hand, alchemists never had the intellectual tools nor the motivation to separate the physical (chemical) aspects of their craft from the metaphysical interpretations."
This also fails to separate the two forms of alchemy.
:[JS] See above. Jorge Stolfi 03:43, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Separation of physical and spiritual

message: "For one thing, the lack of common words for chemical concepts and processes, as well as the need for secrecy, led alchemists to borrow the terms and symbols of biblical and pagan mythology, astrology, kabbalah, and other mystic and esoteric fields; so that even the plainest chemical recipe ended up reading like an abstruse magic incantation."
Once again, we have my view completely ignored while it's opposite is stated without any reservation.
:[JS] The opposite view would be that every occurrence of "Sun", "Moon", etc. in alchemic texts had a spiritual meaning, not a chemical one. Surely you don't mean that.  You must have read books where the "key" Sun=gold etc is given out by the author.  Jorge Stolfi 03:43, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Meaning of symbols: physical or spiritual?

message: "Starting with the middle ages, alchemists increasingly came to view these metaphysical aspects as the true foundation of alchemy; and chemical substances, physical states, and material processes as mere metaphors for spiritual entities, states and transformations."  The timeline is way off here.
:[JS] This point certainly deserves to be discussed.  Jorge Stolfi 03:43, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: When did the spiritual side arise?

message: "Some humanistic scholars now see these spiritual and metaphysical allegories as the truest and most valuable aspect of alchemy, and even claim that the development of chemistry out of alchemy was a "corruption" of the original Hermetic tradition. Most scientists, on the other hand, tend to take quite the opposite view: to them, the path from the material side of alchemy to modern chemistry was the "straight road" in the evolution of the discipline, while the metaphysically oriented brand of alchemy was a "wrong turn" that led to nowhere"
What most scientists believe about the nature of alchemy is completely irrelevant, it's what most scholars on the subject believe.  If Dr. Frank Smith, neurobiologist who has never read more than a few lines on alchemy thinks a certain way about it, it doesn't matter, because he's not well educated in the field, and certainly not an expert.  We need to find some evidence on those who are well-educated experts on the subject of alchemy..... of which occultists will tend one way, and science historians will have the other bias.  If they truely differ as such, we should probably just state both of their biases and leave it at that.
:[JS] Your definition of "well-educated expert" seems to be "one that agrees with my view".  The opinion of chemists is 100% relevant, because they alone stand a chance of "decoding" the chemical recipes.  On the contrary (as I said before) a scholar who sets out to study alchemy without a minimal knowledge of  chemistry is certain to make a fool of himself.  For instance, a chemist can make a good guess at what the "red oil of antimony" is, and therefore guess what the ingredients were, and so on.  What can a Jung do with that, except egregious mistakes?
:The little chemistry that I picked up in high school and college (and in my own "alchemical experiments" in my teens) already makes a big difference when reading alchemical books like Bacon's or Flamel's. In most cases I cannot tell exactly which substances are meant, but the little that I can understand does make sense — as plain chemistry!  Jorge Stolfi 03:43, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Scientists view is irrelevant?

message: I also want to add a section explaining alchemy from the Hermetic standpoint in so far as how it works, defining the different stages from coagulation to distillation, what mercury, sulphur, salt, gold, silver, and lead all mean, it's relationship to Hermeticism as a whole.  Which, if you want to in turn add even more on physical alchemy, that's fine, just so long as the overview prepares the reader for both.
:[JS] There is a separate article on Hermeticism. It is listed in the "see also" section, and in the "Egypt" section; but presumably we should link to it in the Overview too. Jorge Stolfi 03:43, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Expanding on Hermeticism

message: Now, for point #2, which should be much shorter:
"Your statements about the alchemists pretending to do chemistry for fear of the Church is still unsupported. Placing that claim in the head section as a fact is definitely POV."
Sure, it's POV, but it's not BiasedPOV, it helps the article become NPOV.  It is not unsupported at all, but supported by history.  The Church had killed people who differed from them only in that they didn't believe in fighting under any circumstances, those poor souls obviously were slaughtered without resistance.  The crusades and inquisitions, the witchburnings and drownings, and throwing them off cliffs to see if they flew...... these all spoke fear into anyone who might be doing anything that the Church didnt' approve of.  Nostradamus, is a good correlation which I mentioned.  In occult circles, this is a basic fact.  Perhaps the language had to be toned down, but that is all.
:[JS] We can mention that theory, but its weight in the article should be commensurate to its  plausibility. Just being accepted as a fact in (some?) occult circles is not much. I haven't seen any evidence that the Catholic Church had any general prejudice against alchemists; and anyway its power was no longer absolute after the Protestant revolution. Was Nostradamus, for instance, actually persecuted by the Church? Jorge Stolfi 03:43, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Point #2 - Church's persecution?

message: point #3
"I wish I had time now to discuss where exctly the "microcosm and macrocosm" bit came from. Perhaps over the weekend. Perhaps you would like to research that meanwhile."
Sure, that's easy to explain.  Microcosm refers to the self while the macrocosm refers to the All, the One, The Universe, God.  "That which is above corresponds to that which is below.  That which is below corresponds to that which is above." - The Emerald Tablet of Hermes Trismegistus... or as it has been simplified "As above, so below.  As below, so above."
:[JS] The article cites a line from the tablet and says "This [line] is the macrocosm-microcosm belief central to the hermetic philosophy." The question I would like to discuss is precisely how one goes from one ot the other. Namely, whether it is OK to write "This line is", instead of "This line may be", or "Albertus Magnus guessed that this line may have been interpreted by Geber as being"... Jorge Stolfi 03:43, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Point #3 - Microcosm and macrocosm

message: for point #4.... And no, it doesn't have to include all the materialistic scientists, they do not necessarily have any credentials...... why don't we also add in first year chemistry students... chances are that they're equally well read on the subject.  In general, the science historians would as well be included, so long as they are experts on the subject of alchemy, which they may or may not be.  The question is what those who are experts on alchemy believe, not what every group which may contain an expert believes.
:[JS] See above. This is like saying that the opinion of medical doctors is irrelevant to the study of Islamic medicine, or that knowing geometry disqualifies one from understanding Greek mathematics.
: Of course one cannot do a good analysis of alchemy without extensive historical training. Indeed, knowing Latin is a must, and it would help to know also Arabic, Greek, and a few Romance and Germanic languages.  But knowledge of chemistry is essential.  It is no wonder that there are so few scholars studying alchemical writings from the physical viewpoint.  The other viewpoint is so much easier to climb to... Jorge Stolfi 03:43, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Point #4 - Chemists are not qualified to discuss alchemy

message: And the final point....  "Between a definition of alchemy written by Roger Bacon, and one written by Jung or McLean or any modern scholar, I would rather trust the guy who actually knows the subject."
Well, you can trust who you want, but you fail to realize that these modern scholars are also alchemists, and though I am not well-read on the coming out of alchemy, I would imagine that those who first brought this out were alchemists in the same tradition who didnt' feel the need to hide their art anymore, there was an age of reason rising, the intolerance of blind faith and blind passion was waning.  Bacon had motivation to hide his work, Jung did not.
Now, I can relate this to a man on trial for a stabbing his wife.  He has a motivation to not say that stabbed his wife and killed her, namely prison time (compare to alchemists not wanting to be killed, along with their families, and then having their work burnt).  However, aside from his own testimony that he wasn't home (compare to alchemists pretending to do chemistry), the evidence ties him to being there (note that you haven't given evidence that physical alchemy is the purpose of alchemy outside of the ambiguous words of alchemists from the middle ages).  He has a past (i.e. Hermes) of violent action.  Do you claim he's innocent, because you cannot look at any of that, he's the only one who could know, and he never said that he did...... by God, he must be innocent, he said he was.   He didn't commit a crime (i.e. blasphemy and practicing a pagan religious rite, or so viewed by the Church of the time).
PS, info on how to indent like you may be helpful.
:[JS]Start each line with ":", "::', etc.. It is better to type each paragraph as a single unbroken line. Jorge Stolfi 03:43, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Point #5 - Bacon vs Jung

message: Well, would it get by as a new article?  Because I was under the impression that they'd slam it back in here anyways.  If it's above the recommended size and all, I have no problem with doing but a brief reference in here and actually making a new article for it.
I'll chekc out the rest a bit later.
KV 05:23, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Possible New Article 

message: May I intrude , as both a scholar and practitioner of the Great Work, with a few points?
First: Your insistence upon the dichotomy of the 'Spiritual' and 'Physical' branches of Alchemy is awkward at best, though typical. If I were to edit the page on ecstatic Sufi dance by cuttingit in twain, seperately analysing Sufi beliefs and then the footwork, speed of revolution, and endorphin levels, would it serve to clarify anything?  Or would such a bifurcation merely seperate the inseperable? Are there Sufis who just 'spin' and don't worship? Does a Buddhist prayer wheel 'do' anything if a robot spins it?
My oblique point: Any given alchemist will be a mixture of the two: The Chinese alchemists meditated upon internal states such as 'conception vessels', but they also worked with cinnabar, taking it to influence said states. Modern alchemists, such as Frater Albertus, who tought classes, write primarily about the chemical aspects, but also represent (and conceal) the 'spiritual
side'. (See John Reid on Adam McClean's website under the practical alchemy archives, as well as Frater A's class notes)
This problem is , of course, as old as the  false mind/body dichotomy; It is plain to even a fool that each acts upon the other in profound and essential ways. Second: You mention above "...alchemists like Bacon": there was only one alchemist like Bacon, namely, Bacon himself.
Third: Alchemy is an initiatory practice; all of the great alchemists had teachers. Chemistry was 'invented' by the experiments (both banal and painstakingly rigorous) of the UN-initiated. It is true, most of the alchemical oeuvre is the result of the flailings of putative alchemists: dilettantes, charlatans, and mere copyists, as you have mentioned.  Of the many primary and secondary works i've read, very few have mentioned the difference of the esoteric and exoteric.
Riddle me this: Do Freemasons merely set about laying foundation after foundation, until they 'understand', and then write self-serving books about Pythagorean tetrakys theory?  Do the Shaman of South America wander around in the jungle, sampling plants at random, 'til they become healers?
Fourth: The labours involved in the manipulations of physical substances, in this case for the production of the Stone, are meditative. I've spent many an hour observing distillations, circulations, projections and the like; the careful and attentive alchemist is also meditating while working. When I lie in the sun and sweat, while mulling over my knowledge of azeotropic distillation, am I merely 'performing' so-called "spiritual" alchemy? When I ponder the Melusine or the Anima while I distill some odd menstruum, am I just a "physical" alchemist?
Understand this: I make/raise these claims/questions not in a self-aggrandizing, 
'more-alchemical-than-thou' sense, but more as a devil's advocate. When I say 'typical', or 'fool', I  intend no pejorative intimations; i've no wish to start (or compound) a flame war. 
My suggestions? That you take these obfuscations, hyperboles and suggestions, cum grano salis, and, if you wish, re-examine the wedge you've driven. The literature and practice of alchemy is a vast and multifarious subject, not easily summarized. Any good entry must admit at least this.
 
User:Doctorglasseye Early am. , March 5th, 2006 C.E.
   ----Aieeee! Sorry. I've much to learn about wikitext markup language. Bear with  me. Took me 8 tries to get this legible; steep learning curve on a new Argot. User:Doctorglasseye
:Dear User:Doctorglasseye, I think do undertand the historical thesis of modern alchemists — namely that the ancient and medieval alchemists pursued alchemy for their spiritual value to the practitioner, as much as (or more than) for the purely chemical aspects.  I also understand that the modern alchemists practice that discipline with that view and outlook.
:If that historical thesis were correct, then I would agree that the comparison with Sufism and Freemasonry would indeed be appropriate. However, I still do not believe that the thesis is correct.  In the limited sample of alchemical writings that I have seen, I can only see a preoccupation with chemistry (and that seems to be the view of most modern chemists). The so-called spiritual side seem to be clearly secondary.
:Apart from being a convenient source of vocabulary for novel concepts (much as the Islamic alchemists used "oil" for sulphuric acid and "ghost" or "sweat" for alcohol), or a model for processes and classification schemas (e.g. "marriage" for chemical reactions), the the spiritual and cospmological speculation were attempts to fit the experimental data into a coherent theoretical schema (like Dalton's  atomic theory, and the later chemical theories — chemical valence, orbitals, acid/base, oxidation/reduction, bond energy, the periodic table, and ultimately quantum mechanics). And, of course, many (or most) alchemists obviously believed that they would only achieve their chemical goals through spiritual improvement and/or supernatural help, whether "pagan" or Christian. That is, as far as I can tell, the spiritual side of alchemy was not the goal, but only one of the means to reach that goal.
:Surely there were medieval alchemists who shared the modern alchemists' view (just as there were many charlatans who just pretended to share it, for expediency reasons). However, those "spiritual alchemists" seem to have been both a small minority and a relatively late development (say, 18th century or later, when chemical alchemy had already became too complex to leave space for amateurs).  It seems a gross distortion of history to identify medieval alchemy with those 1%, and ignore the other 99% who were unambiguously interested chemistry.  In fact, it is a terrible injustice to devote any space at all to people like Flamel and Kelley, whose contribution to mankind (scientific or spiritual) seems to have been null or negative, and not even mention the many alchemists who discovered the main chemical elements.
:For an example of what I am driving at, consider that the original version of this article barely mentioned Islamic alchemy. I don't recall whether it named Geber, but it certainly did not give any idea of his role, and basically repeated the common view that the Islamic scholars were mere copysts whose only contribution was to safekeep the Greek writings while Europe was having a bad millennium. (By the way, even though I had chemistry classes up to my freshman year, and have been reading science books and magazines for the last 30 years, I had never heard o the guy either, until I had to lok it uf for Wikipedia. I was dimly aware of Western chauvinism, but never thought it could be so crass...) Now, given Geber's discoveries of the acids (which apparently were unknown to the Greek) and all his other contributions, he certainly deserves to be called the "father", not only of chemistry but of Western alchemy as well.  Indeed, from what I have read, it seems that European alchemy was reborn only after the Arab books were translated into Latin; and from the 12th to the 16th century most of the "progress" made by European alchemists was to digest Geber's work. Moreover, I suspect that much of the "spiritual" side of Medieval alchemy was merely the result of mis-translations (which are inevitable when the translator does not understand the subject). So, I think it is unforgivable that the only info about Geber's contribution in this article is still the couple of paragraphs that I wrote a year ago, based only on net sources.  
:Well, sorry for so much verbosity. All the best, Jorge Stolfi 15:23, 5 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Spiritual and physical - Inseparable?