Page 1 of 1

Alchemy and its concepts (from chemical to spiritual ones).

Posted: Mon Aug 04, 2014 6:48 pm
by NielsBohr
Hi, I would like dedicate this corner to the people interested - near or far - in alchemy or its concepts.

Although it seems have been at the intersection of diverses knowledges, I posted in Metaphysics, understanding literally meta-physics.

Essentially, the prerequisites to pursuit, are:
  • elementary notions of psychology,
  • general notions of chemistry and of physics (corpuscular),
or in the contrary, yoo should make some research (at least to assure yourself that I am not mistaking).

Reducing this (past) discipline in converting led in gold seem have been the (unsuccessful) work of only a few.

Sorry if you find that this topic is a return to obscur ages…

I invoque at this title Carl Gustav Jung, who distilled the collective sub-conscient notion from these ages.

(-And I will make a sub-topic apart:
Some researchers have found that alimentation could influence, not only a person in his life, but one or two generations later.)

-So I deeply think that it can be surely the same with the way of thinking, explaining in a way why C. G. Jung had his idea.

Taken in its generality, we surely can think there was as many alchemies as alchemists.

But I think this is not a weak aspect, but a strong one…

(New subject apart:
I think if the Bible was taken so, maybe not so many people would be atheists.)

Several aspects talk favorably for this « science » of old ages,
begining with realities, as acids solutions able to dissolve gold or platinum discovered in the ages in question,
or again the reality of transmutation.

But these were only experimental realties; the discipline is most accorded to have included spiritual aspects at the other hand.

And between these two extremities, of course, all the other possible domains of this period, including - most probably - some psychological aspects.

At this point, the work of the alchemist was not consisting in only finish his experiment (which seems to have been so long that it most probably never ended, as - by example- the attempt to obtain a purity of 100%), but to evolute himself with his experiment.

Finally, I extend these considerations in the idea that - less restrictively - a person thinking his own concepts and trying to bound analogies between domains (of knowledge), as physicists, could be called nowadays as alchimist.

The problematic of physics, I think, could be an attempt to understand the world ever in a mechanist way, acting in trying - by example - to decompose (for a purpose of understanding) an interaction leading to consider a (new) smaller particle (some gluons or « virtual » photons) explaining this way the phenomenon of interaction, what only move the problem to another place, as I develop there:
viewtopic.php?f=5&t=12042&p=175729#p175729

-I want tell the story that arrived to me in 1999. I met during a grape harvest, a tramp (someone who has no home), and this person spoke to me better than my own father ever did…

He initiated me to alchemy concepts, explaining me (these are his own purposes) that:
Alchemy did not have any relation to chemistry, and
that we had to be prudent with philosophy.

I understood the second point later, in the fact (resumed here) that the proper of philosophy in general, is having no « doctrine » (except some particular « schools » of thoughts) - I understand this way - no axis in thinking and even more in evolution, what could lead on the well-known fact, that we have no formal progress in philosophy.

But about the fact, I think that chemistry had necessarily been the experimental side of alchemy.

The discover of some acids able to dissolve gold from the alchemical period, and even the discover-in-mind of the transmutation couldn’t - from my point of view - make chemistry aspects irrelevant; indeed, not only I consider these « elements » as relevant for themselves, but moreover, relevant of a more global but coherent knowledge…

Obviously, one « scientific fact » that we can a priori blame against alchemists, is the idea consisting in elements which were not chemical ones.
I personally see in modern physics - corpuscular physics - a correspondant notion to these; effectively, if we consider the chemical atome (an atome of a chemical element), he was not literally a-tome, as it was divisible - and this is why the physicists considered briefly alchemy before considering that it said approximatively « all and anything » as they did not have any reference (as I personally do, except one or two names of past or present personalities) -
so if we consider this one, as it is divisible I said, the « atome of the atome » was in a first time the neutron, according to the definition of Leucippe, brought by Democrite, knowing (in brief) :
non divisible and neutral (about the electrical charge), but…
the atome of the neutron is noting, regarding the fact we found quarks « Up » and « Down », presenting asymmetrical charges (they have as electrical charge - in comparison to electron - 2/3, and (-1/3)).

All that last paragraph to say that we finally re-obtain - although under a form approximatively of a particle (rather supposed if I don’t mistake myself) - some « principles » - why not the previous « elements » - due to the fact relatively unclear (also for me, during I try to develop), that in place of having one particle pro quantity of a quality (as it is the case for the weight), we have some qualities, the known electrical charge in the occurrence, who are apparently not equi-distributed; which fact could lead in my sense either to more smaller constitutive particles, or to some principles possibly non localized, or at least not in the manner as being in their representative particle.

And this is where I recall the paragraph about gluons, who interact with quarks - to talk about only the « atomic »/« chemical » or baryonic matter.

This ends the part where I would mean the pertinence of some experimental aspects.

I already mention that I have a relative knowledge of physics, sometimes as an autodidact, what means surely limited.

This post consider mostly the experimental ideas - understand chemicals ones - but I would like to let people contribue also with the concepts Carl Gustav Jung discovered in alchemists, (as psychology is not my domain), but what is in principle well known by other people.

And I would like to let the priority to people motived by the topic, rather than in some non-constructive critics.

Re: Alchemy and its concepts (from chemical to spiritual one

Posted: Tue Aug 05, 2014 9:06 pm
by WanderingLands
I looked into alchemy myself, and though I haven't really practiced it (the practical part in alchemy), I've looked into more of the spiritual and allegorical aspects of it. I did bought an elixr from last winter off of a website called Crucible, which was meant for increasing energy and clearing the mind, and it most definitely worked like it was supposed to have.

Re: Alchemy and its concepts (from chemical to spiritual one

Posted: Tue Aug 05, 2014 9:44 pm
by NielsBohr
Good,

Can you explain to me how did them discover mentally the transmutation ?

(I have my answer, which I omitted to explain in my first post.)

I keep my answer secret until you give me yours. :mrgreen:
-------
P.S.:
Indice: I saw you had the answer elsewhere. But I would let you try to tell me exactly the reason.

Re: Alchemy and its concepts (from chemical to spiritual one

Posted: Wed Aug 06, 2014 12:24 am
by WanderingLands
NielsBohr wrote:Good,

Can you explain to me how did them discover mentally the transmutation ?

(I have my answer, which I omitted to explain in my first post.)

I keep my answer secret until you give me yours. :mrgreen:
-------
P.S.:
Indice: I saw you had the answer elsewhere. But I would let you try to tell me exactly the reason.
The mental 'transmutation' is very much more of a 'spiritual' transmutation. It's the embarking of a spiritual path to what's often called 'enlightenment' or 'truth', which takes a long time requiring hard work and the development in patience to whatever form of suffering there is. If you were to include the practices in this 'transmutation', it would require mainly meditation and sometimes prayer (both of which can be used for insight in the 'transmutation', and for intuition), depending on what type of religion or if you're religious.

Re: Alchemy and its concepts (from chemical to spiritual one

Posted: Wed Aug 06, 2014 11:27 am
by NielsBohr
Okay,

Thank you WanderLands for your pretty answer, but it does not correspond to my question. Effectively, I asked about discovering mentally the transmutation, and not about a mental transmutation itself...

You had the answer on first topic about your basis of metaphysics, knowing,

One is (in) All, and All is also (in) One:
WanderingLands wrote: The Ultimate Truth, which is the Ultimate Axiom that has been held by many philosophers and many religions of the past, is:

The ALL is ONE, & the ONE is ALL.

The explanation for this Axiom is that the entire existence, all of us, are in fact made up of a single substance, which is the Life Force or prana, which comes from the One Thing, or the "Source" as I call it.

Image

Notice this picture above. The dot is a representation of the "Unmanifest Absolute", where there is Pure Energy; the entire circle within is the "Manifest Absolute", in which all of the Pure Energy is manifested as existence, which is one big circle (meaning that we are all One, hence this symbol that I have shown you).

More shall be elaborated tomorrow.
I don't take as my own this as being a "ultimate" truth - what could be seem a too strong term - but I must admit that it was a might principle (although most probably not the only own of the alchemists).

I think it comes from the idea of an Original Atom.

As All could have been compacted into one point, we could think that some principle - or "laws" - have gone alongside the others. The modern Big-Bang theory could be only a collective unconscious due to the alchemic ideas. (Or maybe a secularization of the Bible Genesis.)

I don't tell for so, that the Big-Bang theory is true. I mean its ultimate validation should be in reaching the instant Zero... what will be impossible.

I am nevertheless not totally faithful in Big-Bang theory, because due to dilatation of time, the Original Atom could have exist from the eternity... before some action created the world as we know it.


-To come bak on the principle about One in All, and All also in One, I think it could have prefigured the modern notion of quantic intrication...

I don't explain myself this in any other way.

Re: Alchemy and its concepts (from chemical to spiritual one

Posted: Wed Aug 06, 2014 3:15 pm
by WanderingLands
NielsBohr wrote:Okay,

Thank you WanderLands for your pretty answer, but it does not correspond to my question. Effectively, I asked about discovering mentally the transmutation, and not about a mental transmutation itself...

You had the answer on first topic about your basis of metaphysics, knowing,

One is (in) All, and All is also (in) One:
WanderingLands wrote: The Ultimate Truth, which is the Ultimate Axiom that has been held by many philosophers and many religions of the past, is:

The ALL is ONE, & the ONE is ALL.

The explanation for this Axiom is that the entire existence, all of us, are in fact made up of a single substance, which is the Life Force or prana, which comes from the One Thing, or the "Source" as I call it.

Image

Notice this picture above. The dot is a representation of the "Unmanifest Absolute", where there is Pure Energy; the entire circle within is the "Manifest Absolute", in which all of the Pure Energy is manifested as existence, which is one big circle (meaning that we are all One, hence this symbol that I have shown you).

More shall be elaborated tomorrow.
I don't take as my own this as being a "ultimate" truth - what could be seem a too strong term - but I must admit that it was a might principle (although most probably not the only own of the alchemists).

I think it comes from the idea of an Original Atom.

As All could have been compacted into one point, we could think that some principle - or "laws" - have gone alongside the others. The modern Big-Bang theory could be only a collective unconscious due to the alchemic ideas. (Or maybe a secularization of the Bible Genesis.)

I don't tell for so, that the Big-Bang theory is true. I mean its ultimate validation should be in reaching the instant Zero... what will be impossible.

I am nevertheless not totally faithful in Big-Bang theory, because due to dilatation of time, the Original Atom could have exist from the eternity... before some action created the world as we know it.


-To come bak on the principle about One in All, and All also in One, I think it could have prefigured the modern notion of quantic intrication...

I don't explain myself this in any other way.
Ah - I see now :D . However, what I meant by the 'Monad' or the 'One/All' is not really a literal 'atom' by any means. It's more of like an all encompassing 'primal force' that permeates all of the particulars in the universe - kind of like an Ether that binds all forces and is possibly the Collective Consciousness of all things.

The reason why I don't really call it an 'atom', is mainly because I believe that it's quite insignificant to look at whatever is the smallest thing in the Universe, at least as the 'building block' of things. Even if these particles or atoms were to exist, we still would have to look at the underlying force that which binds these particles.

Re: Alchemy and its concepts (from chemical to spiritual one

Posted: Wed Aug 06, 2014 5:08 pm
by NielsBohr
Thank you WanderLand,

I nevertheless did not found for so my reasoning on yours.

Actually, the Original Atom is an idea of some metaphysics... maybe the Rose-Croix, or anyway some alchemical theories.

-I respect totally your thought in the most relevant notion of force than in the particular conception of matter, and to be honest, I begin to think so... but I hesitate strongly to draw a line on the corpuscular theory, to get totally the rid of it.

Maybe am I not enough advanced, but I am afraid that to destruct quantic physics, which seem to have precisely open our mind on more "spiritual" aspects of science, much more than the term "quantic" or "quantum" could evoke.

Although, as a primordial atom, it would be question of principle as much - or even rather - than a conception of matter, due to the fact that all could be mixed in one...

For me,
  • the transmutation is in a way a "brotherhood of matters", on which would necessarily go the notion of original atom; this point is the aspect of conception, as - if I do not mistake myself - a "noumene" aspect (in the sense of Kant);
  • and the quantic intrication would be the behavioral aspect, at least if a phenomenon is not necessarily causal, what I believe - the phenomenal aspect.
The complementarity of these two aspects could lead to think that the primordial atom could be an "achieved" notion, although we could try to go deeper in details, thank to science.