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Elixirs of Immortal Life a Deadly Obsession


rashore

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1 hour ago, XenoFish said:

Don't like facts do you. Chemistry and metallurgy got their start within alchemy. Magick is just self help/personal development with extra steps. The alchemists of old mixed magick with science. 

From alchemy to chemistry.

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There's a notion that Alchemy was seeded by the knowledge from the Houses of Life of AE during decline of the state internal structures that protected those places of learning and stored knowledge.   Not much proof of it though.  ;)  I think the etymology of the word is the only evidence (such as it is) for this idea.

I'll just post these snips about the word from Wiktionary:

Etymology

From Old French alkimie, arquemie (French alchimie), from Medieval Latin alkimia, from Arabic اَلْكِيمِيَاء(al-kīmiyāʾ), from Ancient Greek χημεία (khēmeía) or χυμεία (khumeía) originally “a mingling, infusion, juice, liquid, as extracted from gold” and later “alchemy”, perhaps from Χημία (Khēmía, black earth (ancient name for Egypt)) and/or χυμός (khumós, juice, sap). (Compare Spanish alquimia and Italian alchimia).  [my bold]

Noun

alchemy (countable and uncountable, plural alchemies)

  1. (uncountable) The ancient search for a universal panacea, and of the philosopher's stone, that eventually developed into chemistry. quotations ▼
  2. (countable) The causing of any sort of mysterious sudden transmutation. quotations ▼
  3. (computing, slang, countable) Any elaborate transformation process or algorithm.

The esoteric/mystical path of the Alchemist is contained in #1 & 2 above, and involves the transmutation of the self into a higher, purer state....symbolized by gold.  It was no small part of the goal of Alchemy.

eta:  The Chinese Daoists, back on topic, also had two forms of Alchemy that focus on Jindan (golden elixir):

        Weidan, involving the concocting of brews that were swallowed (the mercuric immortality potion is such) and called the 'external elixir'.

        Neidan, involving the internal processing of mind and body through physical movement and thought actions (or non-actions too) is called the 'internal elixir'.

http://www.goldenelixir.com/jindan/jindan_intro.html

Edited by The Wistman
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What exactly would one do with immortality? 37 years is too long to live, could you imagine the mental anguish and torture that living for even 100 extra years would be?

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14 hours ago, Captain Risky said:

wasn't Hermes Trismigestus a greek amalgamation of Apollo and Thoth? i think it was. my reading also leeds me to believe that the Egyptians weren't interested in alchemy. 

Thoth is in there, yes, but it is nearly entirely a Greek invention. The Greeks liked to play with other cultures' deities like this.

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19 hours ago, Captain Risky said:

wasn't Hermes Trismigestus a greek amalgamation of Apollo and Thoth? i think it was. my reading also leeds me to believe that the Egyptians weren't interested in alchemy. 

They were more into spells to control the world and fix health problems.  They were the world's first physicians and surgeons (that we know of, with a training program and some standard equipment) but I agree with you -- I don't recall anything like alchemy.

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All right, everyone, just let this drop and move on.

I have removed the absurd and unnecessary exchange from this thread.

Captain, there is no need to fan the flames if there's not even a fire.

People, drop it!

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And a bit of thread cleaning again.

People, remember that Moderator Compliance is one of our rules. You agreed to this rule and all the others when you became a member.

I don't like to suspend posters but I will not hesitate to do so, especially to those posters who somehow think the rules don't apply to them.

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The Chinese also believed eating powdered jade was a life-extender. One guy on his deathbed after that apparently didn't work out so well attributed the failure to not having cultivated his morals sufficiently. Yeah, I'm sure it had nothing to do with swallowing the equivalent of ground glass on a regular basis for years.

Edited by Oniomancer
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On 1/3/2019 at 3:27 AM, Alien Origins said:

You would have to understand the Egyptian way of thinking on that..Of course they were not the first to mummify but they carried it to a whole other level thats for sure. Immortality is a lot like beauty it's in the eye's of the beholder.

It's more like in the eye of the soul, as I'm a soul man, when it comes to beauty and love. I learned how to love beauty before I was born.

There is no escape, Socrates, said Cebes; and to me your argument seems to be absolutely true. Yes, he said, Cebes, it is and must be so, in my opinion; and we have not been deluded in making these admissions; but I am confident that there truly is such a thing as living again, and that the living spring from the dead, and that the souls of the dead are in existence, and that the good souls have a better portion than the evil. Cebes added: Your favorite doctrine, Socrates, that knowledge is simply recollection, if true, also necessarily implies a previous time in which we have learned that which we now recollect. But this would be impossible unless our soul had been in some place before existing in the form of man; here then is another proof of the soul’s immortality.

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A study of the Mediterranean diet shows an increase in longevity over many other forms of diets. But by no means is it the only one with positive gains. For instance, in some parts of Japan eating lots of fish also shows gains.

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Humans have searched for the fountian of youth for thousands of years and it has alluded all who have tried....Even with the advances in medical science man is still unable to live forever.... People cheat death all the time but you can only cheat it you will never defeat it.

Edited by Alien Origins
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Wasn't gun powder invented while trying to figure out a Chinese immortality potion?

EDITL: Wikipedia thinks it was....

Quote

The discovery of gunpowder is attributed to experimentation in Chinese alchemy by Taoists in the pursuit of immortality,

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_gunpowder

 

Edited by DieChecker
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Back in the 1930s their was an immortality treatment that involved the transplant of monkey or ape testicles into humans. This was something of an international craze, and their were reportedly thousands of such surgeries performed.

We now know that you can catch diseases from other primates, and it is likely such transplants could have resulted in the first transmissions of SIV into humans where it mutated into HIV.

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13 minutes ago, Razumov said:

Back in the 1930s their was an immortality treatment that involved the transplant of monkey or ape testicles into humans.

A link, or source citation would be helpful.

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3 minutes ago, Jodie.Lynne said:

A link, or source citation would be helpful.

i think he's pulling your leg or rather the apes...

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Thread cleaned...again

The LAST thing you want to do after being told to drop an argument and being suspended, is come back to the forum and restart the argument. For those of you who were embroiled in this situation, this is why you see your posts missing.

Remember, if a Moderator issues you a directive, you are obligated to accept it. No one really cares if you disagree.

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A little more on Chinese Daoist Waidan (external elixir).

Wikipedia has a page on the toxicity of these potions:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_alchemical_elixir_poisoning, including :

Quote

In Chinese history, the alchemical practice of concocting elixirs of immortality from metallic and mineral substances began circa the 4th century BCE in the late Warring states period, reached a peak in the 9th century CE Tang dynasty when five emperors died, and, despite common knowledge of the dangers, elixir poisoning continued until the 18th century Qing dynasty.

And from another source a little doctrine:

Quote

In the later Waidan tradition, two types of methods stand out for their importance:

(1) The first main method is based on mercury and lead, which respectively represent the Yin and Yang principles. These two substances are refined and joined in a compound that is deemed to embody the qualities of Pure Yang (chunyang), that is, the state of Oneness before its division into Yin and Yang.

(2) The second main method is centered on cinnabar (Yang). The mercury contained within cinnabar (representing the True Yin contained within Yang) is extracted and newly added to sulphur (Yang). This process, typically performed nine times, finally yields an elixir embodying the luminous qualities of Pure Yang. This Yang is not the complementary opposite of Yin, but, again, represents the Unity before its separation into the two complementary principles.

                                                                                                                       http://www.goldenelixir.com/jindan/jindan_intro.html

 

Quote

"When he ingests the Medicines, let him fly as an immortal, have audience at the Purple Palace, live an unending life, and become an accomplished man!"

                                                                                                                    ---  Jiudan jing (Book of the Nine Elixirs, ca. 2nd century CE)

 

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15 hours ago, Pettytalk said:

A study of the Mediterranean diet shows an increase in longevity over many other forms of diets. But by no means is it the only one with positive gains. For instance, in some parts of Japan eating lots of fish also shows gains.

My Japanese-Algonquian diet seems to work. But it includes not eating American food. 

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